


...Water my Peace Lily

by ErikaWilliams



Series: Hot Fuzz Quotes Challenge [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Euphemisms, Finn-centric, Gen, M/M, Misunderstandings, Post Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 04:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6737422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErikaWilliams/pseuds/ErikaWilliams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“...water my peace lily.”</p>
<p>That had to be the most annoying phrase in the entire galaxy.  Finn was convinced nothing could ever be worse.  Now if only he could figure out if it was a euphemism or if Poe just didn't want to spend time with him anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	...Water my Peace Lily

“...water my peace lily.”

That had to be the most annoying phrase in the entire galaxy. Finn was convinced nothing could ever be worse. Every time he heard it, he just got so irrationally angry, and the more he heard it, the worse he got. He would die happy if he could go the rest of his life without hearing that phrase again. Especially if he never had to hear it from Poe Dameron.

The first time Poe said it to him, he hadn’t thought anything about it. They had been eating a late dinner in the mess hall. There weren’t many other people in the mess, and they had been having a good time, laughing and talking about everything. Then Poe had excused himself and told him, “I have to go water my peace lily.” Which was fine that time. It was late and getting to be way past the time they should have strayed to their own separate rooms. So the first time had been okay. Expected to a certain extent. He had been trying to come up with a reason to excuse himself before things could have become too awkward.

Then Poe had done it a second time. And a third. And a fourth. Then Finn had stopped counting. He would do it at the weirdest times too. There was no pattern, or specific time of day. He would say it morning, noon or night. Sometimes it would be at the natural end of the conversation. Other times Finn felt like Poe was walking away from him in the middle of a conversation. He tolerated it to a certain extent, but he started to feel like it was about him. That Poe was just using an excuse to avoid speaking with him. 

He had tried ignoring Poe for a little while, at least not initiating conversations with the man. Yet Poe still approached him and still ended one conversation with “...water my peace lily.” He thought about cutting Poe some slack. It wasn’t all their conversations; they did on occasion part ways with a simple “Goodbye” or “see you later.” Yet the “water my peace lily” persisted like a dismissal.

Then one day Poe took it too far. They had been in a lounge area, staying up late, sitting on the edge of the couch and talking. Actually talking, not just casually chatting about their days while BB-8 hummed quietly in the corner. Maybe it was the late hour, or the fact that he had bottled it up for so long, but he was really opening up to Poe. He was confiding in him all his fears, his concern about Rey being on her own, his worry that the First Order might come after them, what might happen if Captain Phasma had survived her trip down the garbage chute. He even tried to sort out his feelings for Rey, using Poe as a sounding board. He thought they had become good enough friends that he could tell him just about anything. He really needed someone to talk to him about all of this, and he thought Poe would be obliging.

No sooner had he started talking about Rey, Poe looked uncomfortable and kept checking his watch. Which at first had seemed rude, but at least Poe was pretending to be sympathetic. Or so he thought. Until he said those damn words.

“Look, buddy, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go water my peace lily.” He reached over to clap Finn briefly on the shoulder. “But we should definitely pick this conversation up some other time.” He vacated the room faster than if it had been on fire. So Poe was definitely trying to avoid getting close to him. Or maybe Poe just used it as an excuse to avoid being close to anyone. There was only one way to find out.

The next day he sought out Jess in the hangar. She was doing some repairs on her X-Wing. That could work to his advantage.

“Hey, Jess, can I talk to you for a minute?” he said as he approached the X-Wing. She seemed more approachable to him than some of the other pilots.

“Sure.” She climbed down off the ship and wiped her hands on a rag. “What do you need, Finn?” She could have continued to work on her X-Wing; he didn’t need her undivided attention. It might make the conversation easier if she were doing something else. 

“It’s about Poe,” he started, and her eyes darted from side to side as if she were looking for him.

“Are you sure I’m the right person to talk to about this? Maybe you should try talking to Poe.”

He would if Poe would stop running off to water his damn peace lily. “Has Poe ever told you he had to water his peace lily?”

“Oh…. Oh! Yeah, I think he might have told me that once or twice.”

Once or twice? At least that meant it just wasn’t him that Poe was trying to avoid. “What do you think it means?”

“Well, at first I thought it might be a euphemism for something.” That was something he certainly hadn’t entertained before. But if that was the case, he was doing it far more often than should be healthy. For any man of any species. “Then I realized he probably wouldn’t be saying something like that to me. So now I think it might actually be a peace lily.”

“Is there such a thing?” he asked. The First Order wasn’t overly concerned with plant life, especially one that had “peace” right in the name.

Jess shrugged. “I don’t know, but I asked Snap once if he watered his peace lily as much as Poe does, and I thought he was going to sic his battle droid on me.” So he should probably not go and ask Snap about it next. He might think Jess had sent him there as some type of trick. 

He supposed there was only one way to find out what Poe was up to every time he said he was going to go water his peace lily. Of course, there was always the chance Jess was onto something with the whole euphemism thing. That was one he had never heard before. Different worlds probably had different sayings. He had heard at least five when he had been in the First Order. Still, he was going to need a lot of courage to ask Poe about it. He had to know though. He had to know if Poe was actually going to do something when he left or if he was just blowing him off. Sure, things might be a little awkward if it turned out to be a euphemism, but he would get over it, and he would rather know the truth.

The next day, they were eating lunch, and as predicted, Poe tried to excuse himself. “Listen, buddy, this is great, but I have to go water my peace lily.”

Okay, it was the moment of truth. Time to find out if Poe was going on autopilot or simply avoiding him. Or, the third, least likely option, that there was actually a plant and he did spend that much time watering it. “Can I come with you?” he blurted out far too quickly for it to sound even remotely casual.

Poe looked taken aback, because, well, quite frankly, asking someone if you could watch them water their peace lily was just not done in polite company. He regretted asking Jess about it.

“Sure, if you want. It’s not that interesting.” Which was how he found himself stupidly following Poe through Resistance base corridors, back to Poe’s room with BB-8 rolling along behind them. What if this had all been some sort of strange initiation ritual and BB-8 was going to record everything to broadcast to the whole base later? And why was he sweating so much? If it had been some type of stupid euphemism, Poe would have rejected his offer to join him. Right? What if Poe thought he wanted to help him with the watering of his peace lily? BB-8 chirped something behind him as if the droid had somehow managed to read his mind.

Poe opened the door to his quarters and led the way inside. It was definitely a mite better than the room Finn had been given with three other foot soldiers. It wasn’t large by any means, but it had a small kitchen area to the side and a double bed built into the earth.

“I meant to tell you sooner,” Poe said as he made his way over to the little sink, “but feel free to come here anytime you want. Make yourself at home.” He started to fill a little cup with water. “Grab a snack, use the bed for a little privacy nap if you want.”

Cup in hand, Poe started to cross the room to the bed. “I remember what it was like to share a room. Hated every second of it. They kept taking my stuff.”

There, on the table next to the bed a little green, flowering plant flourished under a strange lamp. Poe gently poured the water from the cup into the pot.

“That’s the peace lily,” Finn said, pointing to the plant as Poe sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah, that’s what you came here to see, right?” Well, yes, he had wanted to know the truth. “They don’t look like much, but they need a lot of attention. I have a droid take care of it for me when I’m not here.”

He should have been relieved that Poe hadn’t been blowing him off. Hell, he should have been relieved that it wasn’t a euphemism and Poe just couldn’t control himself around him. He didn’t want to name the feeling gnawing at the bottom of his gut “disappointment,” but there it was. There had been something exhilarating about having the best pilot in the Resistance continually excusing himself from his presence with a thinly veiled euphemism. But the plant was real and sitting right in front of him. Poe left him so frequently to tend to a tiny, green plant. A small part of him wanted him to be insulted, but it wasn’t Poe’s fault. Poe had done nothing to encourage the idea that it was anything other than a plant.

“Was there anything else you needed?” Poe asked from where he was still sitting on the bed, empty cup in hand.

“No,” he said, mouth suddenly dry. “I just wanted to see the peace lily since you care for it so much.”

It was for the best, really. Now he would not have to endure the torment of turning Poe down gently. It was his fault, for letting his imagination run away with him. Big deal indeed.

The next day as he was eating breakfast, Jess plopped herself and her tray down next to him. “I hear you helped Commander Dameron water his peace lily last night.”

Well, maybe he could blame her just a little bit as well.


End file.
